


Forever Falling

by fowl68



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Dancing, F/M, Falling In Love, Family, Flowers, Love, Pre-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 08:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fowl68/pseuds/fowl68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is hers from the very beginning, but she can't ever be entirely his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever Falling

* * *

 

_Trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever.  
~Author Unknown_

* * *

 

He is hers from the very first conversation.

He'd looked at her the first time and seen she was lovely. Who wouldn't? Pale green hair braided back practically, hazel eyes that shimmered with green when the light hit it just right and skin tanned from long hours in the strong eastern sun.

She scolds the younger brother, who Yuan had caught trying to pick-pocket them. The siblings don't look alike, not really. He's pale blonde with a darkness in the summer sky blue eyes that Yuan recognizes. It's a darkness that's in the eyes of a lot of war children.

"I'm sorry for the trouble," she says, turning to him and Kratos.

Yuan shrugs. "No harm done."

They'd only planned to travel together as far as the city. The roads are treacherous, after all. But those few days turn into weeks turned into months that become years and Yuan learns to recognize her voice, her different smiles, her reactions.

One of his most poignant memories of her is the night that they're standing in the surf, cold water brushing their calves and starlight flickering off the waves as they laugh and splash at each other. The war is far away that night and she is a different person, less sorrowful and it makes him fall for her again.

But she belongs to her brother first.

"That doesn't mean she doesn't love you," Kratos says one night when it's their turn to collect firewood. "She can't take her eyes off you. She does love you."

Yuan smiles a little. "Listen to you. Kratos Aurion, expert on love."

Martel is everything that Yuan has always wanted. A wife and a family. A future. They talk about it once, raising a family together. Martel had hesitated a little on that and she didn't need to say anything for Yuan to understand what she is going to say. Mithos comes first. Yuan wishes that he hadn't been expecting it, that he could muster a little bit of anger or annoyance because of it, but he can't.

Sometimes, he runs his hands through her hair simple because he can. He loves her hair, loves the color and the fact that it's not soft--there's no way it can be, with them constantly on the move--and how her nose scrunches as she fights with it some mornings.

"They used to make fun of me," she says during one of those times, leaning her head back into his fingers. "Because of my hair."

He grins a little at her. "I know the feeling."

Martel laughs then, full-throated and sweet, as she tugs at a lock of his cerulean hair. "I can't imagine why."

Sometimes, he brings her flowers, just to see her smile as she breathes in their scent. Amaryllises were her favorite, he remembers.

They only ever dance together twice. Once, at their wedding and the other time was her twenty-third birthday, which is spent out on battlefield. She's exhausted that day, having been healing all day. Yuan takes her hands and gently tugs her to her feet and dances with her to half-remembered folk songs that they hum before wishing her a happy birthday.

It isn't only Mithos' world that crumbles at her death.

"I'm sorry, Kratos—it must-must hurt you too and here I am—"

Kratos only holds his friend—his brother—tighter. "It's alright," he insists gently. It's a mantra that he's been repeating, even as he holds back his own tears. Martel is dead, yes, but it wasn't his soul getting ripped apart. Kratos can put himself back together, start afresh.

"Heaven knows where I'd be if you weren't here," Yuan murmurs, his voice gravelly and eyes wet.

Kratos knows where he'd be. Shattered and mad, just like the lovely half-elven boy with Martel's smile who'd cried himself until he'd run out of tears and fallen into, hopefully, a dreamless sleep.

It takes him a while to really pull himself together. Years, really. But he manages to get it together enough so that he functions, so that he isn't broken like Mithos was. Is.

Yuan never takes off the ring. He twists it, toys with it, catches himself staring at it sometimes, but he doesn't ever take it off. Its words are fading now, the steel chipping a little, the gold not glinting as bright.

He's always been hers and still is.


End file.
